


Team Outline - Silph Road Reddit Post

by AlpineMask



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7070707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlpineMask/pseuds/AlpineMask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Posted for the Silph Road's "what would you be like if Pokemon were real?" post that inspired the Silph Road fiction community. :)</p><p>Also: a little background on the team I would have were I a trainer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Team Outline - Silph Road Reddit Post

I didn’t get my first pokemon when I was ten, unlike a lot of other kids. Oh, my dad had a badly-tempered, ill-handled Growlithe for a while. He'd been given away- too much chewing on the furniture and entirely too much pup for a single, working dad and his young daughter. Later, Dad had gotten a really skinny, hangdog Houndour from a friend of his who owned a ranch, and he had served as my best friend and closest companion before the last two major moves of my childhood. Dad called him 'Pepper', and he was a good friend, if a bit old and shy. I remember throwing sticks and watching his body melt through the snow, curling up next to him when Dad had long work days and I was home first, and the solitary time he used Growl, when the neighbor lady downstairs was drunk and came up to batter on our door.

That didn't mean Pepper had ever been _mine_. Even on the Christmas where I'd turned ten and hoped Dad would hand over his pokeball, I was instead given books on training pokemon _first_. Soon after, Dad gave an aging Pepper away and I got moved down to Texas for the second time. The family down there had a couple of small Furfrous, also highly advanced in age. It didn't take but a couple years for me to get sent north, thanks to our neighbor's Gogoats getting fleas and giving them to _everyone_ , especially me.

My last childhood move at 13 saw me depressed and unhappy, feeling abandoned. My grandparents in Alaska were part of a fringe religion that eschewed the use of pokeballs- if you could hand-tame a pokemon that was all well and good, but its adherents were supposed to never use that technology. It was one of a list of extremely inane, outlandish rules that eventually forced me to leave that group in a huff, walking a mile home and barefoot. Shortly after that, I managed to talk my grandma into taking me to the local humane society.

I wanted a pokemon of my own. Moving had left me with no friends, and the kids at my school were particularly nasty about ensuring I had _no_ friends that year. I eventually settled on a small, runty Lilipup girl that seemed shyer than the others, more reserved, but had a sweet personality nonetheless. She'd cowered away from me at first, when I'd let her out of her ball, but after a few moments she had crawled into my lap and accepted both treats and small scratches behind the ear.

Miya was the first pokemon I owned that was most _definitely_ mine, and in the darker times of middle school she was the only reason I had to not go seek death by hypothermia, or a noose. Grandpa had made his hatred of her obvious, and I knew that if I passed away, she would be turned wild and eaten alive... or worse.

Even with her companionship, my depression and loneliness were blatantly obvious and I was enrolled in a psychiatric outpatient program at about fifteen. The psychiatrist who'd seen me at the time had suggested getting a specially-trained psychic-type pokemon, a 'service pokemon' that had a few extra legal rights when with their trainer (or 'handler' for those who hated the term 'trainer') and were there to assist them. I'd heard of guide pokemon for the blind, and hearing-ear pokemon for the deaf, but I knew that there was no way this would fly under my grandfather's roof. More than anything, he _hated_ psychic pokemon- and he hated a _lot_ of things.

Despite my interest, I had to refuse. For years, Miya was my only pokemon, eventually growing into a Herdier. _That_ went over about as well as a Steelix trying to catch a ride on a Hopip. Where Grandpa had tolerated Miya's presence before, her increased size and power made him nervous and edgy.

My friends down the road had snuck me a Sneasel they'd found in their yard as a Christmas present, knowing I'd wanted an Ice-type for a _while_. She was a troublemaker, and eventually I re-homed her with someone in town who had a few more resources to entertain a bored Sneasel. I eventually got a Delibird on sheer, _stupid_ luck and Miya's massive prey-drive. After I made sure the poor thing wasn't _too_ traumatized by Miya not knowing what to do with something once she caught it, I added a second Pokemon to my group- Noelle Delle the Delibird. I got a lot of stupid jokes about her appearance and my birthday being Christmas.

Eventually, I moved out of Alaska and down to Colorado. I started noticing some foot pains at the start of my freshman year, but I ignored them. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I finally took up a psychiatric health professional on getting a service pokemon. As luck would have it, there were local breeders who bred Ralts specifically with this in mind- and they were considered excellent for this purpose. After a short break over Christmas where I spent time learning the ins and outs of handling a service pokemon. Luckily, with psychic-types, it was generally more learning to be okay with having my mind semi-constantly read by the Ralts. I named her Nanaiya, which means 'acts for peace'.

Eventually, Nanaiya more-or-less forced me to go to the doctor, with Miya and Noelle having been recruited to her 'nefarious' cause. The pain in my foot had gotten bad enough that walking caused me to be intensely nauseous and nearly cry with every step. The doctors discovered that I had a missing ligament in my ankle and operated on my ankle. During this time, Nanaiya went from assisting solely with psychiatric things to helping with _everything_. I think if I had let her, I would have possibly been teleported to and from the restroom!

Even for some of the more painful treatments, such as the cast going on my foot a week after the surgery, Nanaiya did her best to ease my pain. When I ran out of pain meds, she made _sure_ the doctor knew about it, and made equally sure Miya grabbed one of my nearby friends. When I was finally mobile again, I got a cell phone call from the half of my family in Texas, cryptically warning me to check my mailbox _every day_.

What was in my mailbox was an Ultra Ball containing the last, and only male member, of my team. Bless their hearts in the most southern way possible, but this Ponyta had started out the worst-mannered, most obnoxious member of my team to date. Where the itch of having Nana in the back of my skull was irritating to a purpose, Indy turned out to be annoying and stubborn for the sake of it. I figured my folks probably let him get away with a _lot_ due to his size and speed.

Still, between Nana and I, we eventually got him better-mannered. He turned out to be a dream to ride around my rural town, and encouraged me to get out and about a lot more. After realizing that I was neither going to hurt him, nor stand for any of his crappy shenanigans, he was awesome to saddle-train and ride. About this time, Nana started nagging me about the occasional stagger-stumbles I had due to my ankle. Miya had been expressing desire to battle the Digletts, Sandshrews, and other common pokemon around town, and eventually I let her at it, learning a good deal about battling along the way. I ended up with a final tally of one incredibly loyal, sweet Stoutland, a Kirlia who would end the world for me (and keep me from ending myself), a Delibird who spent most of her time napping on me, and a Ponyta who wanted to go grocery shopping with me by the time I was twenty-six.


End file.
